I see potential for very ironic answers.
Well you're being helpful...
Here's my final exposition on the Golden Rule/reciprocity/jibbersih (hereafter GR).
Let's take GR in its most general sense: That I should do something to other people that is as if those people were myself. If you want it to mean something different from this, then you'll have to provide it.
First, lets consider the masochist objection that we're all now familiar with. The masochist wants to feel pain. Thus in treating other people with reciprocity he'll try to cause pain in others.
Your reply is that this is not a fair description of what is happening. The masochist only wants pain because he really wants pleasure. So what is actually happening is that he is should be trying to cause pleasure in other people, in the ways that they want it. Here we have a big problem:
n the ways that they want it. Surely our theory doesn't think we should treat people both as they want and how we would want at the same time. So we have to have a hierarchy here. ie. Pleasure is the top-level preference, pain is the lower-level preference(or the means).
So now we need a theory of what counts as a top-level preference. We don't have one.
Second, what if my view of what is preferable to me is coercive? The religious person coerces himself and his family to respect the laws of his religion. Does this mean he can force others to do so as well, morally?
But how does he coerce himself you might ask. After-all, he is choosing what he wants. So what should actually be respected is a person's ability to choose what they want. Let's accept that. If we do, then aren't we forced to accept the actions of the person who chose to steal a Ford Explorer? Why not? we are respecting the persons upper-level preference (to choose their actions) and their preferred means in exactly the same way we did so in order to avoid the Masochist example. So our theory says either murdering, stealing etc are good or coercion is.
This is why
relevant descriptions are such a difficulty. What is being reciprocated?
There is also the question of the relevant reciprocal agent. If I cheat on my wife. Should I care about my wife's thoughts? The other chicks thoughts? My mother's thoughts? Who is the other?
Also GR does not tell us what I should do. Should i get really drunk every night? Should I never work and live off welfare? Should o kill myself?
Finally, GR doesn't help explain serious ethical questions:
1. Is killing an animal painfully wrong?
2. Should I join the army?
3. Should I pay my taxes?
4. Should I lie to someone to spare them a bad emotion
5. Should I abort this fetus?
6. Should I murder one person to save 6?